The Color of Dragon Blood
by Fatespeaker
Summary: "For wings of earth, search through the mud/For an egg the color of dragon blood." It took a lot of bloodshed and sorrow to bring our beloved dragonets of destiny together. Travel back to the night that changed everything and follow along with the heart-pounding action as Asha, an ill-fated MudWing, delivers a red egg to the Talons of Peace. (Short story. Rated T for violence.)


**The Color of Dragon Blood**

 _An egg the color of dragon blood._

Truly, this had to be fate's doing. Why else would Asha's own sib have had a red egg at the perfect time?

Asha clutched the big, russet egg to her breast and held it right over her heart. It was so close to hatching; it could start rocking at any moment now. It smelled of Cattail, Asha's grumpy sister.

Asha was not the kind of dragon who got scared easily. She could handle loss, and grief, and war. But this egg...the thought of protecting this egg terrified her. Never had she trusted in something so much as this prophecy. So many dragons depended on the Talons of Peace. Their faith rested on the prophecy, on the red egg, on her.

A dry wind whistled through the forest. She crouched in the thick undergrowth, her scales still splattered with mud. Her sides hurt from flying hard and her eyelids were drooping with exhaustion, but she was still in fair physical condition. It was a miracle that she'd been able to get this egg through peaceful means. The Talons of Peace could only hope that Hvitur and Webs, the dragons assigned to stealing eggs from tribes, survived their missions and came back with suitable eggs.

 _They will_ , Asha told herself. _It is destiny. If the prophecy isn't fulfilled by us, then it will still come true by some other way._

That was how destiny worked, right?

After taking one more moment to catch her breath, she rose back up and unfurled her wings. The sooner she could get to the mountain, the better. This territory was currently the source of much fighting between Blaze and Blister's armies. If she got caught in a skirmish...

No, she couldn't think about that. Not now.

She spread her wings and took off into the night.

Asha took a long look at the stars, trying to use the constellations to navigate. It was not a typical MudWing tactic, using the stars as a map. Her time with the Talons of Peace had taught her many un-MudWingish things.

She had been forced to skirt around the heart of the Sky Kingdom by a group of sentinels. Flying this close to the Sand Kingdom border was risky. She could see where the forest thinned and gave way to sandy desert from here.

Just a few more hours, and she would be safe with the Talons of Peace.

Though she remained focused on her flying and the keeping a firm grip on the egg, she couldn't help but ponder some deeper subjects.

When the war ended - and it _would_ end, she reminded herself, in its time - would her life return to normal? Would she go back to the Mud Kingdom and attempt to rekindle some bonds with her remaining sibs?

 _Then what? Spend my whole life sleeping in bogs and drilling with the troop?_ Asha shook her head. She didn't want that. There was no way she could go back.

The egg started slipping from her claws, and she felt her heart jump in her chest. Frantically flapping her wings, she adjusted her grip on it. As she held it close again, taking deep breaths to calm herself, she thought she felt something stir under the shell.

"Not yet," she whispered. "It's not the brightest night yet, kid."

She smiled, feeling terribly silly for talking to an egg.

 _Two cows,_ she thought, _for the fate of all of Pyrrhia. What a bargain._

This would be her future. Raising this egg. The thought sent chills through her dirty scales.

Growing up in MudWing society, Asha had never felt any sort of maternal instinct. She'd never even laid any eggs. The closest thing to motherly love that she thought she would ever feel was a sense of pride in her younger siblings.

And yet...now, as she looked at the red egg, as she ran a careful claw over its thick shell, she felt something new, a strange love, deep in her stomach. A sense of protectiveness, of pride. One day, this dragonet would be revered by all of Pyrrhia. And she, Asha, would get to be its mother.

"What will we call you?" she asked the egg in a gentle, low voice.

She soared low over the treetops. Her nerves were somewhat calmed by the soft sound of the branches rustling in the wind.

The breeze stopped, and the warm night air fell still.

The trees were still moving.

Asha's eyes, as sharp as they were, caught only a flash of a scale before it all happened. A pale SandWing shot up in front of her, signal fire blasting out of his mouth. Asha ducked around him. Internally shouting at herself for getting distracted, she spun around to shield the egg with her body and looked for a path to escape.

SandWings were everywhere. They flew up from below the trees and swooped down from above. How had she not noticed them? How had she been so foolish?

A large SandWing, with light armor strapped to her back, gave a loud roar. "For Blaze!" the presumed leader cried as she charged...right past Asha.

 _Huh?_ Asha turned. Her jaw dropped when she saw the whole platoon of SeaWings and SandWings that had appeared behind her.

The SandWing's challenge was met with enraged snarls and shouts of "Blister!" from the rival dragons. The two armies surged toward each other, dragons of various colors grappling in the air and spurting flame.

An attack. It dawned on Asha as the battle raged around her. She was in the middle of a territorial conflict.

She desperately tried to fly up and away from all of the soldiers, to get out of the front lines, but the fight had already begun and was escalating quickly.

The once peaceful night was filled with roars and shrieks. Orange SandWing fire and green SeaWing light lit up the sky. Battles like this one were gruesome spectacles to behold.

"You're working in odd ways tonight, destiny," Asha growled to herself. She dodged the claws of a SandWing and tried bolt away from the center of the intense combat. She was bleeding from her left wing now. Why was she bleeding? She didn't remember being struck...

A smaller SandWing cursed at her and took a swipe at her face. Still holding the egg in her front talons, she used her hind legs to kick him away. Her claws sliced through scale, into flesh, sending the soldier spinning down with a torn wing.

She glanced up at the dark sky and saw silver glinting to the east. IceWing reinforcements. This was no small skirmish. Soon, she would trapped in the crossfire of a deadly, full-fledged battle.

 _Destiny, don't fail me now._ Asha held the egg even closer. She let out mighty MudWing roar, slammed a powerful wing down onto the face of an attacker, and started fighting her way out.

* * *

Webs picked up the SeaWing egg and set it down again. Muttering to himself, he adjusted the nesting material and lightly touched each egg.

Three eggs. A SeaWing, freshly taken from the Sea Kingdom; a NightWing, delivered yesterday by Morrowseer; and a SandWing, added by his acquaintance Dune. Three tiny lives of incalculable value.

 _Three down, two to go_ , Webs thought, turning toward the cave entrance and anxiously thumping his tail. Hvitur and Asha should have arrived by now.

He was still on high alert from stealing the royal SeaWing egg. It had been a close call.

His gills pulsed, and random Aquatic phrases flashed through his scales. _Destiny. Need the eggs. Need the eggs. Two eggs._ Thank goodness there were no other dragons around to see him like this.

Hvitur was probably the one in the greatest danger. An IceWing sneaking into the Sky Palace was as good as dead. Webs silently hoped for the best for him. Asha should have had less trouble getting MudWing egg. Still, something could always go wrong...

Webs wasn't sure how long he waited in the dark, damp cavern, watching the eggs. His nerves made it seem like forever.

The sound of a dragon dashing madly toward the cave startled him out of his wits. He shot up like a scared sandpiper, rushing to the entrance and struggling to compose himself. A terrible, keening sound met his ears. It was the kind of sound that strikes a dragon in the marrow, one that he knew all too well from his days in combat. It was the dying cry.

"I stand with the - " Halfway through the secret greeting phrase, he came to his senses, recognized the dragon's voice, and rushed out. "Three moons! Asha..."

The MudWing shoved him aside and stumbled into the cave. Her brown wings, now torn and bleeding, were wrapped around herself. Blood dripped from her many wounds. Though most of her injuries didn't look bad, there were some awful, wide lacerations in her neck and side that oozed dark, thick red.

Webs wrapped a wing around her, helping her stand. When she leaned against him, the sudden weight caused him to stumble. He looked at her face. Asha's breathing was ragged, and her expression was pinched with agony.

"The egg," he said sharply, "Do you have the egg?"

Asha nodded. With a pained wheeze, she gave Webs the blood red MudWing egg. Her talons shook as she handed it to him.

"Careful," she gasped. "Careful with it."

"Thank you." Webs set it down with the other three and returned to Asha's side.

 _Four down, one to go._

"What happened? What happened?" he demanded. He grabbed some moss from the makeshift nest and used it to soak blood from her neck.

Asha groaned. She weakly pulled at his wing, seeking a source of warmth as her life ebbed away.

"Careful," she repeated. "Care...careful with the egg..."

"What happened?" Webs reached for a rag and continued in vain to try and stop the bleeding.

The MudWing winced. For a dragon who was probably in the last moments of her life, she was remarkably quiet and collected.

"Caught between armies...Blaze and Blister's..." She cut off her own words with a small gasp as Webs tried to move her away from the eggs. "The egg...the egg...I had to protect it so I fought...stop...stop." She took a short, pained breath, and sighed. "Be careful with it...I'll raise it. I'll raise it. Careful with it."

Asha's wings flapped and her nostrils flared. She stopped talking. Her sides continued heaving for a few seconds. Then she finally fell still. A thin trail of blood slowly crept down her neck and dripped onto the ground.

"Asha." Webs rolled her over, revealing the true severity of her wounds. Horrible, deep slashes ran all the way from her neck to her tail. They came from an IceWing's claws; he could tell by the placement and extent of the tearing. Her belly was drenched in blood. How she had even made it to the cave with the egg was a mystery.

Webs dragged the body to a different cave. He did his best to clean up the mess that Asha had made near the eggs.

Moving with calm, soldierly precision, he returned to the eggs and sat down beside them.

"For wings of earth, search through the mud for an egg the color of dragon blood," Webs recited to himself. He picked up the red egg and stared at it. It had real blood on it now, dried and flecking off. Like some sort of scab. A disgusting sight. "What am I doing here?" he muttered hoarsely. "What am I doing?"

* * *

"Five eggs. Happy now, Webs? We have five!" Kestrel snarled. "And the stupid prophecy will never come true, because that one is the _wrong kind._ " She roughly prodded the newest addition to their unique nest, causing it to roll over.

Dune stared blankly at the collection of eggs. SeaWing, NightWing, MudWing, SandWing...and RainWing.

"I did what I could," Webs said stiffly.

"Well, someone go and tell the NightWings to CHANGE the prophecy, because we've got a shiny RAINWING egg now," Kestrel huffed back. She dragged her claws across the damp floor, making an earsplitting, grinding noise.

Dune cleared his throat and stepped away from the red SkyWing. He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and waited. The eggs would hatch soon. Outside of the cave, three full moons blazed like faded suns. It was the brightest night.

The unspoken tensions continued to rise as the three minders watched for the long-awaited first crack.

"This will never work," Kestrel muttered under her breath. "Terrible, stupid plan."

That finally broke the SeaWing.

"It will work. It _will_ work," Webs exploded furiously. He slammed his tail down hard, causing the eggs to rock. "I did not leave behind my entire life, my _entire life_ for these thrice-damned eggs to - "

"Oh, your _entire life_ ," Kestrel sneered, "With your beautiful SeaWing family. We know about that. Your girl, and her son. You talk in your sleep, you know."

Abandoning all guises of civility, Webs bared his fangs and lunged forward. Dune and Kestrel were both startled, if only for a moment, by the usually calm dragon's outburst. Cursing her to the moons and back, Webs seized Kestrel by the shoulders and spat in her face.

A wisp of smoke rose from Kestrel's snout.

She shoved Webs back, and he hit the wall with a loud grunt.

Dune glared at her. "Kestrel, stop."

"Fat fish," she growled at Webs. She could have struck him again. She could have started a fight. Her soldierly instincts seemed to kick in, and she found just enough discipline in herself to step back. "Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me," she snarled, wiping her face and clenching her talons into fists.

Webs glowered at her and slunk to the other side of the room.

Then the RainWing egg started trembling.

The cave fell into shocked silence. Temporarily forgetting the quarrel, the minders all leaned in to watch.

The egg moved once, twice, and then stopped. They kept watching.

Nothing happened.

"It was suppose to be a SkyWing egg," Kestrel hissed. "A SkyWing egg."

"Oh?" Webs shot her a look. It was obvious that her earlier taunt had struck a nerve. "For your 'beautiful SkyWing family', Kestrel?"

Kestrel stood up straight. "If you - " she started.

Dune flared his wings and stomped to get their attention. "Enough! Both of you!"

The SeaWing egg made a soft, pipping sound, and again the trio of adults quieted down to watch. A heavy solemness settled on them as they waited. The scene seemed more like a funeral vigil than a hatching day.

The big, red MudWing egg began to shake violently. It rocked from side to side, bumping into the NightWing and SeaWing eggs.

Moving faster and faster, in an almost panicked fashion, the egg began to hatch. Cracks spread down the side. At first they were thin, faint lines. Then they widened, and spiderwebbed their way across the entire surface. With a loud cracking sound, the first chunk of smooth shell, a small, triangular piece, broke off.

Dune inhaled sharply. "Here we go."


End file.
